Novell

[Garrett Goebel]

Jonathan Hutchins wrote:
>
> Novell must really be complimented for even existing today.
> They have let so very many oportunities pass through their
> hands it's amazing that they haven't gone the way of Lotus,
> WordPerfect, and Smartware, but they soldier on.

Novell exists because it has a solid product which customers are loathe to
leave. Engineering over marketing. And it is sad to say, but they could use
a little more marketing. You don't hear many stories about people adopting
Novell products... But those who haven't already jumped ship, aren't likely
to any time soon. At least as long as Novell offers a decent upgrade path.


> I really wish that we had seen SuSE buy Novell instead of
> Novell buying SUSE, but maybe SUSE still has enough strength
> to really change how things are done at Novell.

The press releases say "acquired". I'd say Ximian and SuSE will have a 1 to
2 year honeymoon, and if the cash doesn't start flowing into the coffers,
it'll be back to business as usual. I do hope Novell's management can steer
the difficult path of enabling SuSE and Ximian to succeed without shooting
themselves in the foot through mismanagement and corporate culture clash. In
any event, SuSE and Ximian are dead. Whether or not they are successful and
politic enough to merge into and influence Novell's management remains to be
seen.

> That would be great - it would really be cool for a
> company that once had the strength to teach Microsoft about
> arrogance come back and offer real inovation and realistic
> alternatives in the personal an office computing arena again.

I'm not sure Novell has much to innovation to offer in the personal or
office computing space. They might, but Novell has so little marketing
presence, I wouldn't know if they did. They do however have a lot to offer
on the information services management front. If they can wed their network
management and directory services offerings with linux in the context of
mid-to-large sized organizations, they just might survive as more than a
niche player.

> Anybody who's honest about the current state of the market,
> though, has to admit it would be a big change for Novell.

Change... no.

They bought UNIX, promised netware services on UNIX, promised the SuperNOS,
failed to deliver, and sold it. Bought Corel's Linux, made promises, failed
to deliver and sold it. There are doubtless other examples. I probably still
have a copy of UnixWare around somewhere. To me it seems like they're back
to their on-again off-again flirting with UNIX. I certainly hope they
succeed. They definitely have something to offer. But their track record on
UNIX related commitments hasn't been good.

Garrett

--
Garrett Goebel
IS Development Specialist

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